Kenneth, a friend from freshmen year gave me a call when I was at Subang Parade screaming that he is finally married. I mulled over the sad and bitter mixture of feeling, that I wasn't there on his happy day (you know how much do I love wedding) but happy, happy, happy that he is with somebody who loves him so much.
Kenneth, to me, is a special guy. He has a mixed parentage of Chinese and Portuguese. He talks fast (and sounds funny at times), very very prone to acne but boy, does he have a BIG heart. I was trying to describe how super nice he is to a friend that I stammered on words, then I decided to sum up to a sentence , " He is a son whose parents have raised him right ".
Truth is, he was. He was responsible, he seemed like an adult when the rest of us were like kids (especially the last-minute-assignment-to-do Eugene and oh-so-playful Vanan). He nodded to each one of us (even to a girl he barely knew) and never forget to smile. He was serious in the classes. He was committed to community service, he taught at one of the churches at Kajang. I know he has deep faith in God. He happened to have a conversation with me on his religion, and wow! how that was an eye opener for a girl from a small town whose life has been surrounded by same race same religion people for 17 years. He made me see that there are ways to see things.
Yeah we can go on saying nice things about this super nice friend. But there is one thing I remember most about Kenneth. That he was there for me when my heart was broken (the episode where Nizam left me for his first-love-Naimah). When I shouted from my heart that how could Nizam had a change of heart, Kenneth said a simple but powerful sentence which still lingers around my not-tiny-little-head-anymore of mine, "People change".
I remember he drove his cute old white Honda Civic that we always crammed ourselves either to classes or to lunches. He, one night took me out for a movie (I think it was Ransom where I thought Donnie Whalberg of NKOTB starred), opened up the door of his old Civic for me, making me feel like a girl worth a man's respect. Truth was, I didn't feel I was worth any respect, felt that there wasn't a piece of dignity left in me when I have spent nights begging Nizam not to leave, to choose me instead. Kenneth erased just that.
And he was among a few who still accept me when they see I went out again with Nizam, among a few who accepts me for letting myself be used again, be exposed to the possibility of getting hurt again. Still, he stood by me. When we were both in the Dean's List of that oh-so-painful semester, I know I owed him a lot.
Kenneth went to Wisconsin and came to Indiana to visit me when Vanan decided to move to out from Indiana (whose so koyak rabak blanket I had to sew with him singing on top of his lung happily). He came to visit me too when I started my induction course back in Malaysia. He was still the same old Kenneth, very prone to acne, talks fast and never fail to smile. "People change" but he never did.
You see, he was there for me and I was a parasite friend sucking up the good energy he never fail to throw everytime he smiled or patted my shoulder. But I was never for him when he broke up with that girl who went to Australia. I never heard from him again, occasionally called him on his birthday (which falls on Valentine's day, or else, I don't think I would remember). I was not there when he first fell in love with this doctor girlfriend of his. Worst, I was not there when he got married. I was a very very good parasite friend of his!
But there are friends in this world who are parasite to us and we are to a few. Some parasites remember the friends who have helped them and some doesn't. Some 'home friends' never even remember us being parasites to them. I remember Kenneth and how big his help to me, but he might not remember that. How could he remember his own simple gesture of opening up a car door to a girl has lifted her spirit and earned her Dean's List? Don't think he could because there are many many of his simple gestures had helped others. May he be blessed through out his life, and I wish him all the happines in the world, may the keys are always there when he needs them, may the sun always shine on him.
PS : Oh ya, he got married at Lone Pine, my favorite beach hotel at Penang!
To Kenneth and Yvette, may you two have wonderful journey ahead.
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